Is HubSpot Worth The Cost? A Guide for B2B Companies

Understanding HubSpot’s value proposition

HubSpot organises its tools into different “hubs”—they’re not too dissimilar to the specialised departments in a company, where each one is focused on a specific area of customer relationships: 

• Marketing hub: helps you attract visitors and turn them into leads
• Sales hub: helps you connect with leads and close deals
• Service hub: helps you take care of customers after they buy
• Content (aka CMS) hub: helps you build and manage your website
• Operations hub: helps you keep all your data clean and connected
• Commerce hub: helps you take care of billing and payments

The nice thing about HubSpot is that all these hubs work together in harmony. They share information, so everyone in your company can see what’s happening with a customer at any given moment in time. 

But perhaps the biggest thing going for HubSpot is its reputation. It’s well-known and respected in the CRM software industry, especially among B2B brands—in fact, if you’re in this world and haven’t heard of it, I’m going to assume you’ve been living under a rock. 

So, the hub ecosystem + stellar reputation = a pretty compelling argument. But let’s peel this back a bit more and explore each of the hubs in detail.

Note: Cobloom is a HubSpot customer and affiliate. We may earn commission if you sign-up for the software after using our links, which helps support our publishing. It doesn't change the amount you will pay for the software.

HubSpot marketing hub: for driving lead generation and nurturing

Marketing is at the precipice of the sales cycle. It’s where people enter the funnel, so having a good grasp of what you’re doing and how well it’s working is a must. 

The key features of HubSpot’s marketing hub:

• Email marketing and automation. Send targeted emails to your contacts and set up automatic email sequences based on customer actions. For example, if someone downloads your ebook, you can automatically trigger a series of helpful (a.k.a. nurturing) follow-up emails. 
• Lead scoring and segmentation. Give points to leads based on how interested they seem and group your contacts based on shared traits or behaviours (e.g. separate leads who visited your pricing page from those who just read your blog). 
• Marketing analytics and reporting. See how well your marketing efforts are working and get easy-to-understand reports on things like web traffic and email open rates. 

How the marketing hub helps B2B companies 

Obviously, the MO of marketing is to attract and convert high-quality leads. The tools in HubSpot’s marketing hub help you build out customer-centric content and nurture relationships through personalised marketing (hello, sending the right message to the right person at the right time)—all while measuring your efforts to see what’s working and what’s not.  

The tea: what’s the ROI potential? 

• Reduce CAC. Automating repetitive tasks means you can reach more potential customers without hiring more staff. 
• Improve conversion rates. Nurturing leads with personalised content means they’re more likely to become customers. It’s the golden rule of marketing. 

Higher retention rates and CLV. Consistently engaging with your audience builds trust and loyalty, which can lead to repeat business and referrals.

HubSpot sales hub: for streamlining sales processes

Having a ton of leads without a decent sales system in place is completely pointless. HubSpot’s CRM bridges the gap between the lead nurturing stage and the final closed deal. 

The key features of HubSpot’s sales hub

• Pipeline management and forecasting. Organise your deals in a visual pipeline so you can see at a glance where each deal stands and make predictions about future sales. 
• Email tracking and sequences. Know when someone opens your email or clicks and link and set up a series of automated follow-up emails to push leads to purchase. 
• Sales automation and workflows. Set up automatic tasks and reminders and create step-by-step sales processes for your team to follow (e.g. automatically assign a sales rep to follow up when a lead fills out a contact form). 

How the sales hub helps B2B companies 

B2B sales processes might be long, but they don’t have to be clunky. Less time on paperwork means more time for selling, plus you can reduce the number of pesky errors from manual data entry. The hub also allows you to tailor your sales approach depending on a prospect’s actions and interests and see exactly where each deal is at in the process. 

The tea: what’s the ROI potential? 

• Shorter sales cycles. Automating follow-ups and providing timely info moves deals along faster. 
• Increased close rates. Better insights and more personalised comms mean you’re more likely to win deals. 
• More accurate forecasting. Make better predictions about future sales for more accurate planning and budgeting. 

HubSpot service hub: for elevating customer support and retention

Customer service is at the crux of a successful business. Without happy customers, you don’t have a viable business—luckily, HubSpot’s service hub helps with this. 

The key features of HubSpot’s service hub:

• Ticketing and help desk. Organise customer questions and problems into “tickets”, track issues from start to finish, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. 
• Customer feedback and surveys. Ask customers what they think about your product or service and collect and analyse responses quickly and easily. 
• Knowledge base and live chat. Create a library of helpful articles and FAQs for customers and offer real-time chat support on your website. 

How the service hub helps B2B companies

First and foremost, the service hub improves customer satisfaction. When people have an issue, they want it resolved as quickly and as pain-free as possible. HubSpot allows you to respond to issues fast and proactively engage customers before they have problems. It does this by piecing together all previous customer interactions and automating feedback collection and check-ins. 

The tea: what’s the ROI potential? 

• Reduce churn rates. Good service stops customers from leaving—the service hub addresses any issues promptly before customers even think about jumping ship. 
• Increase CLV. Happy customers are more likely to keep using your product (they might even upgrade). 
• Increase upsells and cross-sells. Happy customers are also more likely to buy additional products or services.

HubSpot Content Hub: for creating and managing a powerful web presence

Your website is often the first thing potential customers will see. HubSpot’s content hub (aka the CMS hub) is all about creating and maintaining a great website that works hard for your business. 

The key features of HubSpot’s Content hub: 

• Website and landing page builder. Create professional-looking web pages without drag-and-drop tools.
• SEO recommendations and optimisation. Get tips on how to make your site show up better in search results and access tools that can improve your ranking. 
• Dynamic content and personalisation. Show different content to different visitors based on what you know about them. For example, a returning visitor might see a special offer, while a new visitor might see an intro to your company. 

How the content hub helps B2B companies

As well as helping you build professional websites faster and cheaper (and without needing to know a single iota about coding), the content hub enhances the user experience through personalised content and dynamic pages. This makes visitors feel special and improves overall engagement. 

The tea: what’s the ROI potential? 

• Increase traffic. Better SEO means more people find your site through search. 
• Faster time-to-market. You can launch a page for a new service in days instead of weeks. 
• Higher conversion rates. Personalised, relevant content can turn more visitors into customers.

HubSpot Operations Hub: for improving data management and speeding up processes

Operations are the backbone of a business. The smoother they are, the better the overall health of your company. 

The key features of HubSpot’s operations hub: 

• Data sync and automation. Keep information up-to-date across all your tools and automatically move data between systems (e.g. when a customer’s email changes in your billing system, it updates everywhere else too). 
• Customisable workflows. Create step-by-step processes that run on autopilot and design workflows to fit your specific business needs. 
• Advanced reporting and dashboards. Get a clear picture of what’s happening in your business and create custom reports highlighting your chosen KPIs and metrics (e.g. you can build a dashboard to show real-time sales performance across different product lines). 

How the operations hub helps B2B companies 

Mismatched data is the bane of any business—not least because it’s a time-suck trying to consolidate it and it disrupts the customer experience. The operations hub makes sure all data is clean, consistent, and synced across platforms. You can also automate repetitive or complex tasks and the ability to unlock deeper insights helps you make better business decisions. 

The tea: what’s the ROI potential? 

• Reduce overheads. Automate tasks that people do manually or those that are particularly repetitive and time-consuming. 
• Scale quickly. Handle more business without a proportional increase in operational costs. 

Time savings. Your team can spend less time on data entry and more on valuable work that moves the needle.

HubSpot Commerce Hub: for simplifying transactions and revenue tracking

For the commercial component of your business, HubSpot’s commerce hub acts as the glue that binds it all together by helping you manage all the money-related parts of your customer relationships. 

The key features of HubSpot’s commerce hub:

• Quote and payment processing. Create professional-looking quotes quickly and accept payments directly through HubSpot—no third-party app needed.
• Subscription management. Set up and manage recurring payments, and handle upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations easily. 
• Revenue tracking and forecasting. See how much money you’re making in real time and make predictions about future income. 

How the commerce hub helps B2B companies

The financial part of running a business is often the hardest bit. HubSpot’s commerce hub simplifies everything from managing payments to handling subscriptions. You can create a complex quote in minutes instead of hours. But, even better, because the hub integrates seamlessly with HubSpot’s other hubs, you get an instant big-picture view of customer transactions.

The tea: what’s the ROI potential? 

• Reduce churn. Catch potential issues early by tracking subscription changes and making it easy for customers to adjust their plans. 
• Increase revenue. Faster quote creation leads to more closed deals and easy payment options encourage customers to buy more. 
• Improve cash flow. Get paid faster with easy payment options and better tracking of who owes what and when. 

HubSpot is more than a tool… it’s an entire ecosystem

The various HubSpot hubs don’t just coexist; they communicate and collaborate. This means your marketing team can see what the sales team is doing, and customer service can access a client’s entire history. It brings your whole company onto the same page and avoids frustrating miscommunication between departments. 

But you can expand beyond the HubSpot ecosystem if you need to. While the native tools are powerful, HubSpot recognises that you might have other favourite tools that are a core part of your kit. As such, you can integrate with over 1,000 third-party apps, whether that’s your preferred video conferencing software or a specialised industry tool. 

One of HubSpot’s strongest suits is its ability to grow with your business. Your needs today might be wildly different from your needs tomorrow, and you need a tool that can keep up and pivot with you. HubSpot offers various tiers of service, from free tools to enterprise-level solutions, so you can start small and upgrade as your business grows. And, as you scale, you’ll unlock more sophisticated tools—think advanced reporting, custom objects, and AI-powered features. 

Pricing considerations: is HubSpot worth the investment?

There’s no sugarcoating it—HubSpot can be a significant investment, especially for small to medium-sized B2B companies. But it’s important to look beyond the initial sticker shock and consider just how much this tool can handle (spoiler: it’s a lot). 

HubSpot offers a tiered pricing model across the various hubs: 

• Free tools: There’s a pretty robust free plan that includes basic CRM functionality—a good starting point for small B2B companies.
• Starter plans: These begin at $15/month per seat and offer additional features beyond the free tier. 
• Professional plans: These start at $800/month and come with the advanced features of each individual hub. 
• Bundles: You can create customised plans based on your needs—e.g. the professional marketing tier combined with the starter packs for sales, content, service, and operations comes in at $860/month. This is a good option if you need multiple hubs. 

While the price tag might seem steep, especially when compared to some standalone tools, HubSpot’s value proposition gives it that extra oomph. 

Instead of juggling multiple disconnected tools and paying hundreds a month for each of them, HubSpot provides an all-in-one solution. Plus, it grows with you. Start with the basic plan and move up, customising your plan to align with your changing needs. 

There’s also a bonus that often gets overlooked—the training and onboarding costs. With all tools under one roof, your team only needs to learn one system which can reduce training costs and overall time to productivity. 

So, yes, HubSpot is worth the investment, but there are a couple of things to consider before you dive in at the deep end: 

• Your budget. Evaluate whether HubSpot’s pricing aligns with your current budget and projected growth (remember, you can start small and scale up). 
• Features. Assess which features you’ll actually use. HubSpot offers a ton of tools, but if you’re only using a fraction of them, it might not be cost-effective. 
• The size of your team and their expertise. HubSpot can be complex and you might need dedicated resources to use it to its full capacity. 
• Your long-term strategy. If you plan to scale significantly, HubSpot’s ability to grow can be very useful. Plus, you won’t have to jump from toolset to toolset to meet your growing needs. 

Making the decision

HubSpot isn’t the only player in town, but it has got a lot going for it. What makes it stand out is how it brings everything together in one place. Now don’t get me wrong—just having HubSpot won’t magically solve all your problems. You need to know what you’re doing. But when you do get your head around it, it can give you a great foundation to build on. 

HubSpot’s real power lies in its integrations. By using multiple hubs, you can create a unified platform that brings together your marketing, sales, and service efforts—there aren’t many tools that let you do that. This is particularly valuable for B2B companies dealing with complex, multi-touch buyer journeys. 

Before you make a final decision, consider your long-term goals, assess what features you actually need, and play around with HubSpot’s pricing tiers to find a combo that works for you.